FBI-Apple fight thumps everyone’s privacy

Published 4:18 pm, Thursday, March 31, 2016

The federal government’s successful hacking of the iPhone used by the San Bernardino, California, shooter isn’t good news for either Apple or the FBI.

That goes double for the American public.

The essence of the Apple vs. FBI case comes down to a matter of trust and on that front, everyone lost. Apple can no longer tout that its encryption ensures the privacy of its 100 million iPhone users in the United States. The FBI lost credibility with the business community, Congress, the courts and the American public by being less than straightforward about its motivations for taking Apple to court. It’s argument that this was just about this one cell phone never rang true.

And smartphone users lost an opportunity to have the courts resolve the thorny issue of online privacy once and for all.

Apple set the right standard by doing everything possible to secure the privacy of its devices. But if the FBI can unlock iPhones, domestic hackers, foreign governments and others who would do us harm can figure it out.

You can bet engineers in smartphone labs are even now figuring out how to make Apple’s encryption stronger. People need to know that their financial, medical and personal data is safe — period. The threat of identity theft is a much higher risk to Americans than a terrorist attack.

The FBI insists that it needs to unlock smartphones to fight terrorism, but we have yet to learn of a single instance in which the FBI or the National Security Agency thwarted a terrorist attack with its “collect it all” mentality. The San Bernardino case brought a different twist to the issue, but the question remains to what degree the federal government can compel a private company to cooperate with requests to bypass encryption efforts.

The outcome won’t stop these agencies from continuing to pressure Congress and the courts to give them sweeping access to the cyberworld.

Since the Apple showdown, President Barack Obama has been pushing the tech community and security agencies to find middle ground. That’s always worth exploring. Silicon Valley should reach out to the NSA and FBI to see if we can innovate our way out of this mess. But there is a fundamental problem: Either smartphones, tablets and laptops are secure, or they aren’t.

A consumer privacy bill of rights, spelling out online protections, is needed to ensure continued expansion of the innovation economy. Perhaps that discussion can also address law enforcement goals.

The issue may be among the most critical topics of the next decade.

It all comes down to trust. Unfortunately, the FBI-Apple fight did nothing to further that cause for either side.